To address to the unwillingness to go on the offensive by ordinary infantry, the Russian Provisional Government, on the initiative of Southwestern Front commander General Aleksei Brusilov, began forming "revolutionary shock battalions" from existing military units, and "battalions of death" from civilian volunteers and troops in rear area or support units.

The unit was finished forming by early July 1917 and received its banner from General Kornilov, which was black and had the words "1st Shock Detachment."

[5] After the October Revolution members of the regiment went with Kornilov to southern Russia, where the Don Cossack territory became a base for the anti-communist Whites, and they joined the Volunteer Army.

In early 1918, as the Don Cossack lands fell to the Red Army, the volunteers traveled south during the winter on foot in what became the Ice March.

After a failed attack on Yekaterinodar, in which Kornilov himself was killed, Anton Denikin led them back north to the Don Territory, where the Cossacks had overthrown the Bolshevik occupation.

The Ice March failed to inspire an anti-Bolshevik uprising in the Kuban region, but it preserved the core of the Volunteer Army, which became part of the larger Armed Forces of South Russia.